If you or somebody you love is opiate dependent, it’s important that you know about methadone. I say that not because I think methadone is the best treatment for everybody, but because it is an important option to understand if you care about informed treatment decisions.
1. Methadone is a medication used to treat opiate dependence
3. Opiate dependent people who are in treatment with methadone live longer
4. Long term treatment with methadone is better than short term treatment with methadone
5. A low methadone dose is not necessarily the best methadone dose
6. Methadone is the gold standard treatment for pregnant women who are opiate dependent
7. Methadone has drug overdose risks and benefits that you should understand
8. Methadone treatment requires a strong commitment to recovery
9. Methadone-assisted recovery is real recovery
10. Methadone is the single most effective treatment for opiate dependence
Methadone is a treatment for opiate dependence. And it works. For many people it works.
Methadone is not a treatment for cocaine or other substances, although many people say that it helps them with overall sobriety.
Methadone is considered a treatment for opiate dependence as a chronic, relapsing condition. It is not considered a cure for opiate dependence.
Doctors often compare methadone maintenance therapy to ongoing insulin treatment for diabetes. It doesn’t cure, but it effectively treats the condition. This means that it is effective as long as you are taking it.
Yet it does more than that.
For many people, methadone is the key to building a safe and sustainable recovery free from the destructive detox/relapse cycle. And as I like to say, real recovery is safe and sustainable.
With methadone, many people are able to stabilize physically, emotionally, financially, and in terms of involvement with the criminal justice system. So that if at some point they decide to stop methadone treatment, they have a much better chance of maintaining their hard-won sobriety even without the medication.
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I’m interested in the “10 Things You Should Know About Methadone”, but could only read # 1. How do I access the full article?
Hi Peggy,
I haven’t written the full article yet…just number one and number two so far. But I know what the 10 Things are! And the rest will be written and posted over the next couple of weeks. After that I plan to do a similar series about buprenorphine.
Hope you find it helpful!
Tom
That’s a v cogent and succinct list!
While methadone is FAR better than nothing for the long-term opiate-addicted (and complete abstinence is far easier said than done) I am beginning to realize it isn’t necessarily the best possible option for everyone.
I have a contact in Australia who was on methadone for a long while but more recently swapped to oral morphine therapy ~ he says it has done wonders in giving him a life back that methadone left him too tired and depressed to lead… And that’s the problem I have with methadone: depression. I was depressed before I ever got a habit on heroin and have tried and tried to go more than just a day or two without it. But I’m so flat, dull, lifeless I go back to heroin which does many things, but at least it on a good day I might have the wherewithall to cook a meal, go out, do something. On methadone I never want to do anything…
I hate this situation and am desperately seeking a way out. But I am beginning to realize that, for me, methadone might not be the way.
I posted on this a couple of days ago, this is the link, in case you’re interested:
http://gledwood2.blogspot.com/2010/05/5am-heroine.html
Terry Wright (he on the morphine therapy)’s Australian Heroin Diaries:
http://theaustralianheroindiaries.blogspot.com/
Thanks for reading and commenting Gledwood. I added a link to your blog on this site…partly for others to see, and partly so that I’ll have it bookmarked for myself. There is a lot on there that I’d like to explore more! Added a link to your friend’s blog too.
I agree that methadone is not the best fit for everyone. For some people with chronic opiate dependence, prescription morphine or heroin has been shown in studies to work better at reducing drug related harm than methadone or non-medical treatments.